Understanding that gendered toys could lead to different developmental patterns in boys and girls, which then leads to different involvement in different fields, is a very real possibility and consequence to the real world. Toys are capable of forming and molding a child’s personal expectations to meet standards; whether or not we push these standards or leave them unchanged is going to define what our children believe they are capable of achieving in the
Children under the age of eight lack the ability to understand the selling purpose of the advertisement. A majority of parents will give into a child asking for a toy as it not only satisfies them but also allows them to fit in better at school as they are not missing out on the new toy. This is sending the message that children need material objects to make them happy and to be accepted by society A majority of advertisements to children are gender based; girls wearing pink are playing with dolls and castles. Whereas boys are playing with electronic cars while wearing green. This can be seen in figure 4.
If you were to walk into a preschool classroom today, you would see little girls playing dress up with dolls and little boys tackling each other or playing with dump trucks. This is because a child 's gender plays a big role in how they act. From a young age, children are taught either to be feminine or masculine based on their gender. These ideas that are expected of by children are reinforced by parents, schools, media, and society. The preset ideas start off by expecting young men and women to like a certain color, develop certain qualities, enjoy specific activities, and take part in certain jobs.
In such a way that, Barbie has displayed multiple career paths, offered in various ethnicities but always displayed in the same way and with the use of Logos and Ethos. Although the whole idea behind the Barbie doll was to encourage young girls to be able to dress Barbie how they wanted to with the various wardrobes, it was not until quite recently that Barbie was able to hold more “leadership like” rolls in society. With advertisement of the Barbie doll, gender equity closely intertwined with the portrayal of the doll. “Consistent with other commercial advertising formats, males were found in the leadership and authority roles, while females were generally portrayed in more passive roles. When women were the only individuals in the advertisement, the ad copy usually reflected a biased message toward the abilities and function of the women in their roles as professionals.” (Kramer and Nelson 1997).
While parents may buy their daughters action figures or other things that are considered to be for boys, they will absolutely not buy their sons dolls or makeup. Men are supposed to be tall and muscular. They are not supposed to show emotion, or otherwise, that would make them less of a man. This stereotype causes many problems for them and others. Since men cannot show emotions, this causes problems if they were to have a mental illness or physical problems.
Now they are career driven and work to take care of themselves and their families. This may be good because it gives women a sense of independence. Along with that is, the men and their transition to modern ideals. Guys used to be warriors and super masculine, but nowadays it is totally okay for guys to be sensitive or act traditionally “girly”. A good example of that was this guy talking about his father.
Some people comment Barbie clothes just focus on the enjoyment of consuming and it will not give young women a right value of their life. Nevertheless, many young women want to have all kinds of clothes and these clothes have special design like Barbie, which conduces that young women shape their sensory world and improve their aesthetic ability. Thence, some young women go to chase their dream of fashionable dress. Their dream can be traced to play the Barbie doll so Barbie is a primary teacher. At the same time, Barbie’s clothes come from Barbie’s a variety of position.
As seen from the case of McKenna Pope’s brother above, gender-specific toys perpetuate the belief that girls and boys should possess different skills and aspirations. This diminishes the rich educational potential of toys in children’s development. In this report, toys refer to the variety of games (eg board games, card games, puzzles, video games) and toys (eg dolls, trucks, playhouses). Our research shows that the role of toys is to enable children to develop freely, through the attainment of various skills and embodiment of desired aspirations. The holistic skills which toys develop include the social, physical, cognitive and emotional aspects , while desired aspirations is shaped by the ability of toys to enhance imagination and creativity .
Toys and games manufactured for kids affect the fact of learning gender stereotypes. Toys are sold in stores by gender; pink corresponds for girls and blue for boys. Bounding the boys to the “blue” toys prevents him from recognizing the girls’ values and vice versa. Muffitt (2013) indicated that gender stereotypes restrict the child interests because of the toys segregation, he said that “pushing boys away from playing with dolls potentially excludes them from entering caring profession; likewise, stopping girls from building miniature aeroplanes could be the reason for the low amount of women in STEM fields” (para 8). This toy gender classification on one hand teaches the girl that she cannot be a pilot that is a strong and powerful person, and on the other hand shows the boy that he cannot be sensitive and expressive and a care giving person like girls.
For instance, a study was carried out on eighty-four children age four to nine years old to investigate the influence of gender and ethnicity on their inferences about toy choice. In the study, they used unfamiliar toy photographs and unfamiliar children faces from three different ethnic groups to study children’s inferences about toy choice. Children were asked to rate how much they would like each toy for themselves and children of the unfamiliar faces. The study results suggest that children pick toys for themselves and others based on a gender-centric and ethno-centric pattern. For gender-centric, children predicted that other children of same gender would like similar toys like themselves and for ethno-centric, children age of six and seven predicted that other children of the same ethnic would like similar toys like themselves (Lam & Leman, 2003).